1.
10 TRENDS FOR 2014

2.
10 TRENDS FOR 2014
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Brands need to organise themselves for the real world
Because of this, we have been producing trends for clients for the past few years
Nothing changes on New Year’s Day; all of these trends are already happening, but
will grow significantly over the next 12 months, having a greater impact than in the
previous twelve
We highlight what the trends are, why they are growing, key illustrative examples, and
implications for brands, rooted in what we have observed this year
These are trends, not ‘the trends’. There are lots of things happening, and we hope
we have chosen some the most interesting

3.
2013’S TRENDS
It’s a given that lots of things will continue to grow – including web access, mobile
usage, ecommerce, and online video viewing
Last year we also highlighted trends including:
1. ‘Makers’ and the rise of 3D printing
2. Online to Offline, or online brands in physical spaces
3. Digital Scarcity – Charging more by limiting supply
4. Acquisitions – Start-ups selling out
5. The Wow Factor – Amazing stunts
On to this year’s list:

4.
10 TRENDS FOR 2014
1. Smart Devices
2. Push Notifications
3. Bluetooth Beacons
4. Frictionless Payments
5. Location & Local
6. Deliveries
7. Health
8. Actionable Intelligence
9. Polarisation
10.Borrowed Formats

5.
SMART DEVICES
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With the advent of Google glass, smart watches, and technology embedded into
items like cars and fridges, we’re now at the 6th wave of computing – smart devices
The first five waves have been mainframes, minicomputers, workstations, PCs, and
mobiles with cloud computing; the 6th wave technology embedded into other devices,
often with voice controls
Many are more personal devices, built around the idea of the ‘quantifiable self’ while
others are in homes or in cars, but all are personalised

6.
SMART DEVICES
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There are already lots of wearable computing devices, primarily for health and
fitness, including Nike Fuelband and adidas miCoach
2.3m wearable devices like these were sold in China in 2012, and new products on
the market include a watch for pregnant women that tracks health data
Samsung launched their Galaxy Gear smartwatch in September 2013, and while it’s
had mixed reviews – and a 30% return rate – more watches are sure to follow,
including one from Apple
Google Glass is likely to launch in 2014, after nearly a year of field tests, and already
apps have been developed for it, including music listening apps, and one to allow
people to take photos by blinking

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SMART DEVICES
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Cars are also getting advanced computers. In 2014 the first cars that connect to 4G
will launch, and this will allow much faster connection for apps that can help with
navigation, entertainment, safety, parking payment, and more
Houses will get smart too – the Nest Thermostat, created by a former Apple VP
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tracks the temperature in your house, and automatically adjusts it by learning from
your behaviour
There is a huge potential for devices to be operated from other platforms – which is
where services like IFTTT (If This, Then That – a service that triggers events based on
your social media accounts) come in

8.
IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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What all of these devices have in common is personalisation, and brands need to
offer more personalised experiences
Decide where you fit with technology that is embedded into personal, automotive or
household devices
Can current apps or content be adapted, or are there new opportunities? How will
they fit into the new ecosystems?

9.
PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
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This personalisation will bring a new sort of push notification
More services are how using push notifications to communicate with their users, but
in a smarter, more useful, and less intrusive way than before, particularly around
maps and recommendations
Push notifications are one way to cut through the clutter of newsfeeds, especially with
mobile, and even twitter is experimenting with them

10.
PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
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Foursquare uses push notifications to give people advice of what to do where they
are, and where to go next
Google is also pushing reminders out across platforms – for example if you tell your
Nexus 7, “OK Google. Remind me to buy olive oil at Safeway,” when you walk into
the store with your iPhone, you’ll get a reminder.

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PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
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Twitter has been experimenting with alerts in direct messages to opted-in users:
Event Parrot sends you alerts when very newsworthy things happen
Twitter has also introduced a service to allow emergency services to send out alerts in
time of disaster – the messages will appear as SMSs, and also in the timeline with an
orange bell icon

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IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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The move from pull to push is part of a wider issue of dealing with clutter in the
newsfeed, and in life
Brands should think about how to let the right customers know about the messages
that are most important to them – and this might be in alerts (for people who opt in)
or by other means
Is yours the sort of brand that people would want (or accept) a notification from?
But beware of using alerts too often, or too regularly

13.
BLUETOOTH BEACONS
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One place we’re likely to see more notifications is instore
Both Apple and PayPal are testing technologies that
use Bluetooth to communicate with smartphones
within buildings
Apple is currently trialling what it calls iBeacons – a
way of sending messages to iPhones that can
include coupons, information and potentially lead to
in-store mobile payments, in a way that could link
physical purchases back to ad exposure
PayPal is currently testing a Bluetooth-based
payment system that recognises shoppers with the
PayPal app when they enter stores

14.
BLUETOOTH BEACONS
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iBeacons are currently being tested in Macy’s, in an integration with the Shopkick
app
The iBeacons will recognise that a Shopkick user has entered the store, and can then
send information, discounts and more
The single source tracking within iOS could potentially track exposure to advertising,
and correlate that with purchases, if paid using the same iPhone, and also provide
lots of retail analytics
It could also be used as a reversal of ‘showrooming’ people who research products
online could then be quickly guided to the right part of a store to make a purchase

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BLUETOOTH BEACONS
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PayPal has a trial using Beacons to recognise app users when they enter a store,
direct to different areas, and simplify the payment process
It can also be used in restaurants, for example to identify people with reservations as
they enter
Again, this will provide a lot of valuable data on how people transact in physical
stores

16.
IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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Beacons have the potential to change retail
Think about how they can be used to improve the shopping experience, and also what
you will need to do to take advantage of the new sorts of analytics
Remember that Beacons don’t need to be in the same place all the time – they can
more around, and so be used for location-based ideas, like treasure hunts

17.
FRICTIONLESS PAYMENTS
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Just as Beacons could make shopping easier, making payments could also be easier
Facebook popularised the term ‘frictionless sharing’ to describe making sharing
(news articles, links, music) much more easy in 2011
Over the next 12 months we’re likely to see a rise of ‘frictionless payments’ – that is,
making payments between people and companies much easier over social networks
and messaging platforms*
* Assuming that it’s not bogged down in different competing standards, like other mobile
payments have been..

18.
FRICTIONLESS PAYMENTS
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In China the messaging app WeChat lets you send money to in a message to
merchants on the 51Buy site
In November 2013 Xaoimi sold 150,000 smartphones in less than 10 minutes on
WeChat, with all the payment done by messaging
In the US, Square Cash enables customers to send cash to friends through email
In the UK, Barclays’ Pingit lets people send money by phone to friends & businesses
Amazon is rolling out a ‘Pay with Amazon’ button for people to embed on their sites,
and PayPal has launched ‘Login with PayPal’ that will allow something similar

19.
FRICTIONLESS PAYMENTS
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Twitter now uses ‘cards’ – an expandable area of the tweet – to offer enhanced
functions
Currently this includes videos, summaries of web sites, and also the ability to sign to
databases with one click, by populating a sign-up form
However this could also be expanded to include payment. You can imagine buying
items within a tweet – this could work particularly well for concert tickets
In the US Starbucks created a programme letting people send credits for coffees to
each other via Twitter – and generated $180,000 in 6 weeks

20.
IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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Be ready for the commercial opportunities of selling to people directly through
messaging and social networks through one-click buying
Are your followers ready to spend money with your brand?
What could you sell?

21.
LOCATION & LOCAL
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Location is one of the most important aspects of a consumer’s context
Location is also one of the few areas in media and technology that doesn’t have a
dominant player
While all of the major technology companies are now actively incorporating and
asking for location information, for example Google, Facebook and Twitter, there is
no one dominant service for ‘location’ and as a result there is a huge land grab
taking place both for services to target ads based on location, and also to provide
local services

22.
LOCATION & LOCAL
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Mobile advertising is becoming locally targeted with more precision
A key benefit of mobile was always said to be location – the phone moves with you –
and local mobile advertising will grown fast, especially if Facebook and Twitter start
to offer tight targeting
In the US the geo-targeted mobile network xAd now lets you re-target ads to people
exposed to a brand’s billboards via a partnership with outdoor agency Posterscope

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LOCATION & LOCAL
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Local marketing is likely to become more common for both local and national
businesses
Facebook has the potential to be very big in local marketing – it has local businesses,
and very high reach
New companies are also in the space, from ‘local Groupon’ style apps like yplan, to
local sharing apps, to local social networks like NextDoor, to Placed, which tracks instore analytics

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IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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Get ready for a more location-based world, and think about how you can use this
context in targeting both ads and content
Think of location as another targeting criteria, and also be aware of local differences
As with everything around targeting, respect users’ privacy and make sure that you
are not using data in an intrusive way

25.
DELIVERIES
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The main convenience of high street retail over ecommerce is the ability to get the
goods immediately
Many online retailers are now experimenting with same day, and in some cases same
hour delivery in local areas, or ways to make deliveries more convenient

26.
DELIVERIES
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Even if we discount the ‘Prime Air’ / ‘Drone’ story as a stunt, Amazon is still very
active in pushing rapid deliveries in key areas, including evening deliveries on the day
of order, and Sunday deliveries in to Prime members
eBay has bought Shutl, the same day delivery company, and also signed a deal for
click and collect at other physical stores. eBay Now offers delivery ‘in about an
hour’ in some US cities
Google is testing ‘Shopping Express’ in San Francisco, delivering from stores in Toyota
Priuses (& don’t forget they are working on a self-driving car…)

27.
DELIVERIES
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Many other sectors now offer same day delivery, including fashion, white goods, and
food
Same hour delivery is also possible – for example designer label Kate Spade’s pop-up
shop in New York offered same hour delivery to people in the local area (just go to a
café…) with payment on receipt
In China 51 Buy is reportedly thinking about offering two hour delivery
There are also companies like Collect Plus, who deliver and collect from a number of
intermediaries, for example shops that are open early and late
& don’t forget crowd sourced delivery – Deliv is a company that has raised money to
implement this idea

28.
IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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Brands need to be focussed on the immediacy demanded by customers
Life is getting faster, and people expect faster and more convenient service offline
and online
Is someone offering a worse product, but managing the delivery and local fulfilment
better?

29.
HEALTH
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Rising health costs are going to increase the drive to digital solutions, both in
preventative self-monitoring, and in access to healthcare professionals
Healthcare is one of the sectors most often cited as ‘ripe for disruption’ and a glance
at the new companies in the space shows the sort of disruption that is likely
These can be broken down into things that will make health provision easier, and
tools for allowing people to track and diagnose themselves

30.
HEALTH
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There are many ways in which technology can help the
healthcare industry and practitioners
Pioneers in 3D printing are now printing medicines and
artificial organs
Apple’s App Store now features a dedicated section for
healthcare professionals
In the developing world apps give healthcare
practitioners the information they need, where the need
it – for example PEEK (short for "Portable Eye
Examination Kit") lets doctors analyse people to cataracts
in remote parts of the world
Technology also can manage access to doctors – for
example remote consultations or access to more services
out of normal surgery hours

31.
HEALTH
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The other areas is in preventative medicine, and self analysis
Ginger.io analyses big data in health to unlock patterns and improve healthcare
The Scanadu Scout app reads your vital signs, and tracks them over time
SkinKeeper lets patients monitor their moles over time and then send the information
to doctors
The LadyTimer helps women track and predict menstrual cycles
Many others track calories and nutrition, for example Daly Carb

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IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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This is not just an area for brands concerned with wellness and health
Any brands concerned with food, drink, or event who have a trusted voice with men,
women or children could play a relevant part in these developments

33.
ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE
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Social platforms now have lots of information on their members over a number of
years but the meaningful use of this data is only just starting
Many services that let you sign up via Facebook – for example airbnb – can use this
data to perform sophisticated forms of credit & character checks, based on nonfinancial factors, like the number of friends, frequency of posting and so on, based
on past customer data
(People who register via Facebook are already shown to be more valuable customers
for some services)

34.
ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE
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Lots of stories are emerging about what you can tell from social media data
Each tweet contains 31 publicly documented data fields – followers, likes, re-tweets,
time, location and more – which if analysed could give lots of insights
Researchers at Facebook and Cornell University were able to predict a relationship
break-up 60 days in advance from changes in behaviour on the site

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ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE
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Recent acquisitions – Twitter and Trendrr, Facebook and Onavo, Apple and Topsy show how seriously the big companies are taking measurement, and exclusive access
to data
Twitter is actively working with companies to link their data to TV data, to find
correlations, and provide data on how ads are amplified

36.
IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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Take measurement seriously, and think about it creatively
Think about what data can be mined from social media
Always be conscious of the privacy issues in using data

37.
POLARISATION
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Over the next year we’re going to see a rising polarisation in a number of areas,
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• High end tablets & handsets Vs. commodity ever cheaper versions
• Longform vs. shortform video ads
• High quality and immersive content vs. and quick and cheap content

38.
POLARISATION
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There is a polarisation in technology that is defined
by the users
In the next 3 years there are likely to be an extra
billion internet users
Almost all of these people will have very little money,
so will rely on free services
At the same time subscription services like Spotify
and newspapers will try to transition more people to
paid services, by increasing the difference between
the paid and the free versions
In smartphones and tablets there are already
essentially two categories – high end luxury models
like iPhones and iPads, and commodity products

39.
POLARISATION
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There is also a polarisation in content, based on contexts like the time available
In news content we’re seeing a polarisation between new, very immersive content
forms being trialled by newspapers, like the New York Times’ ‘Snow Fall’ feature, and
the more immediate and basic content of sites like Buzzfeed
In video we’re seeing a polarisation between the glossy series like Netflix’ House of
Cards, which cost over $4m an episode, and the YouTube-only content which costs
next to nothing
In advertising we’re seeing a polarisation between longform content, like Jaguar’s 12
minute film Desire, starring Damian Lewis, and all of the 6 second Vines that brands
are producing

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IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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It’s a case of balance – in each of the polarisations decide which end you should be
nearest to, for what you are trying to achieve
In hardware the polarisation reflects society, and brands need to decide which end
they fit best into, or even if it’s both
In content it’s about the mindset of the user at the time of viewing or reading

41.
BORROWED FORMATS
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The growth of video content and video advertising has led to a large scale borrowing
of formats from other media, including TV and print
Many of the most popular brand videos are shorter versions of hidden camera shows
The short video formats that are being popularised through Vine and Instagram are
often versions of top tips
There has also been a rise in the number of parodies and memes in creative work

42.
BORROWED FORMATS
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The movie Carrie was marketed with a 2 minute video showing a hidden camera stunt
in a New York coffee shop
The Veteran Makeover video used the idea of a makeover show, to get sympathy for
an veterans’ charity

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BORROWED FORMATS
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DIY chain Lowe’s has produced a series of ‘Top Tips’ as 6 second Vine films, covering
lots of common ‘fixes’ – a strategy that has also been used by the bank Nat West –
re-appropriating formats popular in magazines
Stickers, very popular with the new messaging apps like Line and WeChat, are also
surely MSN Messenger ‘themes’ under a new name

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IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS
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Think of other popular formats from TV and newspapers that could make good brand
films –
• ‘Faking It’ documentaries (e.g. House painter becomes artist)
• Discussion programmes & Q&A quizzes